The Ties That Bind

Did you live a good life, enough to base a movie on?

My sister, Diana Newton, has been making a documentary film, The Ties That Bind, inspired by our family’s response to my revelation in the early 2000s that I am a transgender woman.

With the help of my spouse, Diana and her husband Barry, my late mom, numerous therapists, and a small but devoted circle of friends I have since completed my journey to become a fully post-operative transsexual woman.

Diana’s film is nearing completion and we are starting to promote the film. I will strive to keep this page up to date with various links and resources regarding the film, North Carolina’s H.B. 2 debacle, and transgender resources that I find, or have found, helpful.

Links to promotional resources relating to The Ties That Bind documentary film

(Wednesday, July 13, 2016) “Time to Come Home: A Transgender Woman’s Coming Out Reshapes A North Carolina Family in The Ties That Bind.” INDYweek, Vol. 33, No. 28. The HB2 Issue. Pages 27-28.http://www.indyweek.com/

(Friday, June 17, 2016) Diana Newton and Christine Bush discuss The Ties That Bind and the transgender experience with host Bill Lumay on WPTF-AM.http://billlumaye.blogspot.com/

Dr. Martine Rothblatt, Co-CEO of United Therapeutics, Research Triangle Park, NC: Moving Trans History Forward. (Moving Trans History Forward: Building Communities – Sharing Connections conference took place at the University of Victoria March 17-20, 2016.)

[N.B. Transgender athletes do not raise any questions about future Olympic Games in this commentary. Ms. Nyad is the one raising questions. This is a good example of how the media tends to substitute transgender persons themselves as subjects of headlines while in fact reporting on some aspect of their participation in the culture at large. In this commentary, Ms. Nyad clumsily conflates gender identity with physiology and equates general athletic acumen with maleness while sidestepping the “questions” about the experience of female-to-male athletes altogether.]

N.C. H.B. 2 resources

N.C. Values Coalition: This ultraconservative organization stays busy using fear-based rhetoric to seed the public with the notion that “values” are inherently fragile and need protecting from any person or institution that doesn’t agree with them: “religious freedoms” need protection; (heterosexual) marriage needs protection; women and children need protection (especially in the bathroom).

North Carolina Media Coverage

Social Media

2016 Election

LGB.TQI issues in the news

[ N.B. I use the abbreviation LGB.TQI as a means of deconstructing the conflation of sexuality with gender identity that the widespread use of “LGBT” reinforces when abbreviating the alliance of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals with transgender, gender queer, and intersex communities for political efficacy and as a common journalistic shorthand. Semiotic confusion can also be found in references to women described as “gay” rather than lesbian. Also see: LGBTQIA. ]